Hallucinations of a Helpful Sort
by soaring-smiles
Summary: After he is lauded as a hero and has a statue pledged to him, he scrapes 'Rose' on the plaque when no one is looking.


_Fairy-tales rarely end perfectly._

_However, when something really must be done, the Universe makes exceptions. _

_People call them miracles, but really, they're not._

_More of a bandaid, come to think._

* * *

He is shaken the very first time.

Running from a particularly aggravated mob, he sees her on the street corner. Her arms are loose by her side, head tilted up, eyes wide open. He checks his watch.

2 am.

She lifts a hand towards him, illuminated by the streetlight, and mouths '_taxi_', but the moment his feet hit the concrete, she is gone.

Perhaps he's going mad. It has happened before.

* * *

The next time is when he's bent over a ticking bomb, dismantling the thing as quickly as he can. His eyes flash up for just a _second_, and suddenly a halo of blonde hair greets him. Her lips are parted, her pulse throbs beneath the skin of her neck.

"The red one," she murmurs and blows a kiss, before vanishing, leaving only the slightest trace of a scent behind.

He cuts it.

When he is lauded as a hero and has a statue pledged to him, he scrapes '_Rose_' on the plaque when no one is looking.

Say what you will, he gives credit where credit is due.

* * *

At Christmas dinner with Amelia Pond, tucking into a specially prepared plate that no one else can even _look_ at, she is in front of him, wearing a pink paper crown. He chokes violently, scraping the chair and gasping for air, hand outstretched above the gravy boat.

Handing him a red crown, her nose screws up at his choice of food, and she shakes her pretty little head.

"Your taste-buds must be _seriously_ messed up," she remarks, and snatches a piece of turkey before patting his hand, and disappearing.

Oddly, he wants to tell her off for vanishing while eating-_think of the consequences_-but reminds himself that she is nothing but a nostalgic urge, a wish for the past and all the love it entails.

Amy and Rory are staring at him.

"Doctor," Amy mumbles around a bite of chicken," Are you okay?"

"What? Oh, yes. Perfectly."

But all that is before he discovers the shredded remains of a paper crown in the palm of his hand.

* * *

_This is getting ridiculous_, is his first thought upon seeing her slumped lazily on the console seat. One creamy leg is crossed over the other, and she's wearing one of his shirts.

The sight affects him a little more than he'd like to admit, and he has to avert his eyes, especially when she stretches up, nails towards the ceiling.

Even more sensual than he remembers.

Titling back her neck, a soft, slow smile lifts the side of her mouth. Her sigh cuts through him like glass.

"Still a terrible sense of fashion, I see."

"Bow ties are cool," he defends reflexively, stepping closer. "How can you be here?"

She looks at him like he's dribbled on his shirt.

"Because I _belong_," she says, and stands up, one hand on his shoulder. "And so do you. You just have to figure out why."

She places a feather light kiss on his cheek. And before he can grasp her arms and demand she stay, she's nothing but a memory.

* * *

He does not sleep for the next six months, pouring over old theories and books, stumbling from idea to idea, and when it finally hits him, he looks years older, except for his eyes.

They're lit up so brightly that anyone could think he was about to cry.

Instead he laughs, and sets the co-ordinates, while whistling along to a song of a composer who disappeared over the Channel, some time ago.

He thinks of holes in universes and cracks seeping through time and rifts in space. He thinks of smiling and her palms and fingers and tongue.

He thinks it's worth it.

* * *

She's eating chips when he finds her. Limping out of the battered TARDIS, weary and crumpled and mussed, inky calculations written all over his hands.

The first thing he decides is that nothing can compare to the flesh and blood that's loving and breathing and living a couple of feet away. The secong is that it's obviously the shock and stress, or something in his eye.

He doesn't cry, after all.

She cleans her hands with a napkin, and smiles at him.

"Took you long enough," she says.

He holds her so tightly she will bruise, and if a couple of tears fall on her head, no one is any the wiser. Words fly from his mouth, slipping into her ear. Apologies mainly. Promises, some, about places they're going to see and how he's never leaving her behind again, ever.

She tastes like vinegar and salt, the rain that's beginning to fall. Her mouth is softer than he thought.

He takes her hand, desperate with relief, giddy with joy, and she tells him that things that belong always find their way back eventually.

After all, no one belongs here more than her.


End file.
